Liona
Liona sat in Cutter's bed with pillows against the headboard propping her up. She'd grabbed a thin book off his shelf and started to read, trying to unwind down the evening. But, the words all seemed to twist inside her, warring with the thoughts and memories of the evening. Something about all of this didn't seem right. But, whatever it was, she couldn't put her thumb on it.
That night, she and the remaining Vanguard had discussed the future. The three men reluctantly voted to keep Farm to Fable closed for the next couple of days, at least until they knew when their men would be free. Cutter, for his part, was strangely confident about that. He said it would just be a matter of time till the guys got out, that his lawyer was moving ahead on everything. Smalls had seemed as surprised as Liona by the turn of events.
“You serious?” he'd asked, brightening up a little. “You mean the boys are really going to come home?”
“Matter of time, that's all,” Cutter had assured him. He'd seemed unhappier about it than he should have, though. “Hunting said the wheels are moving, but they move slower than we think. But, yeah, it's all in the works to get 'em out. Just gotta post bail on some of them.”
Liona had caught his eye during the meeting, and she had her own doubts about what was going on. In the days she'd been there, she'd readjusted to this new, older man, but she'd also learned how similar he was to the younger one she'd known all those years ago. And, to her mind, something about him just didn't seem right. She knew he was telling the truth. But she could also see that he wasn't being completely forthcoming about everything. It was like he was holding back something, but she couldn't be sure of exactly what.
“Well, that's a real good job on that front,” Squirrel piped up as he slurped down more beer. “Real nice, right there.”
“Yeah,” Smalls agreed, laughing and clapping Cutter on the back. “Fuck yeah! I mean, we just gotta give it time, right?”
“Right,” Cutter said, grinning.
In light of things they voted unanimously to keep the restaurant closed for the time being. Now, as she waited for Cutter to crawl into bed with her, her thoughts wandered back over the years, through all the murk of her college tenure, and all the bad times with Wyland. They settled on the last time she'd seen Cutter before just a few days ago, back in the days when he was still just plain old Desmond Hawes.
He'd been an office attendant, then, and was responsible for sending the requests from counselors and the like down to the students. They'd write one up, and he'd go get them. She remembered with a smile, though, that he'd palmed a pad of them from the administrative office at the beginning of their senior year. She should have suspected the beginnings of his criminal inclinations, even back then.
He'd use the stack of hall passes to get her and Wyland out of boring classes so they could go wander the school, or go sneak underneath the bleachers in the auditorium and just hang out. Sometimes just hanging out with your friends and doing nothing was better than sitting through a boring lecture in civics.
One day, towards the end of school, he'd snuck her out of class with a hall pass from the office. He didn't get Wyland, though, just her. She hadn't known it at the time, but he was taking her there to tell her something in private. He'd made a mistake, however. Wyland had seen them through the window as they passed one of his classes. He'd asked to go to the nurse's office a little while later, then slipped after them. Back then he’d had taken her hand. Held it tight, so tight. She remembered how his palms were sweating. She'd thought it was weird at the time, but now she knew he was just nervous. They were sitting close together, and he'd looked into her eyes. He whispered those words to her: “I love you.”
Then, they'd kissed. Their first kiss. Then Wyland had appeared. He'd seen it all and started screaming. The boys got into a fight, with Desmond trying to calm him down and protect himself. Wyland had knocked him back, over a metal support bar. Unfortunately, his leg was still up over the beam, caught like a branch against a tree.
Wyland's eyes were filled with blood-shot rage, the kind of rage only a madman could put off. He stomped down, snapping Desmond's thigh like kindling. Even now, almost ten years later, the sound of that crack haunted Liona as she thought back on it. She shivered at the memory, of how she'd had to pull Wyland off him. What followed, the lies from Wyland, the threats to the school from his father if they tried to punish him, everything had been swept beneath the rug. Including Desmond. Looking back, she knew what was happening was wrong, but she’d been helpless. How could she, one lone girl, make a difference in the grand scheme of things?
So, she'd backed Wyland West's side, and his father's. She kept her mouth shut, and watched as one of her best friends in the whole world was suspended and kept from walking across the stage for graduation.
Cutter came in from the bathroom and crawled into bed beside her, jarring her from her depressing trip down memory lane. “How's the book?” he asked as he pulled her into his arms.
“Not really paying much attention to it,” she said, honestly. “Thinking about the last time we saw each other. Back in school, I mean.”
“Yeah,” he said as she leaned her head against his chest. “Probably not a good thing to think about it. Happened in the past. Should stay that way.”
Guilt gnawed away at her, guilt about the way Cutter had been treated afterward. “I never told anyone about what happened down there,” she replied, suddenly beginning to grow sleepy as she settled into his arms and the security they offered. “Really happened. About how Wyland broke your leg like that when you refused to fight him.”
“Told you I'd rather not talk about this,” he said with a sigh. “It's not something I really want to relive.”
“I should have just said something, should have backed up your story,” she continued, fighting back a yawn. “I'm just, I'm really sorry. I never would have been with him if ... Just, maybe I would have chosen a different path, is all.” She closed her eyes and let the sound of his thumping heartbeat begin to lull her to sleep.
“Honestly,” he said with a deep sigh, “I'm almost happy it happened. Sure, I got fucked over by the school, but it really helped me put some things in perspective and led me here. It sucked when I was going through it, but I'd hate to know what I might have become. Besides, you and I wouldn't have lasted. Not like I was.”
Her lips twisted up in a little smile as he tried to push the past back into its rightful place. “But, were you serious?” she asked, her words slurred with exhaustion. “About what you told me before he showed up?”
“That ... that I cared about you?”
“I don't remember you using that word exactly,” she said as she began to feel herself slipping away into sleep.
“Fine,” he said, his words sounding like they were miles away, in a different world even. “That I loved you?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. But, before she could hear her words, she'd drifted away. The exhaustion had become too much for her.